ROCKFORD — The view from the brick road in northwest Rockford doesn’t make immediately clear why neighbors desperately want the red and white home torn down.

But peer into an upstairs window and you’ll see straight through a collapsed roof to blue sky. A torn screen window on the back porch provides a glimpse of the detritus that covers the floor inside the abandoned structure in the 1700 block of Latham Street.

Scavengers have scoured the home for scrap metal during the four years it has sat empty. Paint peels from the exterior walls.

Raccoons and other critters have moved in, next-door neighbor John Turner said, and the odor of mold is so strong on warm days that nearby residents can’t open their windows. He worries the mold is affecting the health of his family, whose allergies and asthma have been aggravated in recent years.

“Every year it seems to get worse and worse, and as bad as last spring was I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like this year with the smell,” Turner said. “I know there are animals in that house, and I’ve seen people going in and out, and I don’t know why they’d even want to be in there. That door is wide open. It’s pretty gross.”

The dilapidated house is among 44 structures identified by Rockford officials as a priority for demolition. Rockford City Council aldermen are expected to vote Monday on a list of places to raze.

They are a mere fraction of the homes that could be eligible for demolition. The city has identified about 3,300 vacant properties to be evaluated for possible demolition. City officials have dedicated more money to demolition work this year in hopes of ridding neighborhoods of rundown homes that invite squatters and crime and hurt surrounding property values. They hope to knock down 80 to 100 structures this year.

“This year we’re making a tremendous impact,” Ald. Tom McNamara, D-3, said. “I think people will see that impact in their neighborhood crime. They’ll see that in their property values, eventually, and just the overall beauty of their neighborhood.”

The city will dedicate about $700,000 to demolitions this year. It will also get to dump 4,000 tons of debris, free of charge, at the Winnebago Landfill under terms of a recently approved garbage contract. It’s a provision that will carve thousands of dollars from the cost of demolition.

In past years, the city has spent about $200,000 annually on demolitions and had to pay to use the landfill, building code official Seth Sommer said. Inspectors will begin to survey hundreds of properties in April to add to the list of the 44 they’ve already identified for demolition, Sommer said.

Page 2 of 2 - “This is just the first wave and we still need people to report those problem properties,” McNamara said.

City officials approved a ranking system this month to set priorities for demolition. The system ranks by level of public nuisance, safety, time vacant and number of residents affected, among other factors.

Despite the poor shape of the house on Latham Street, it’s nowhere near the top of the list. That dishonor goes to a home in the 400 block of Catlin Street.

City officials say that it’s been a problem for years, and it’s not the only troublesome property on the block.

“Between that house and another vacant house that’s adjacent to it, was sort of a hidden alcove for drug deals. We know that for a fact,” Ald. Venita Hervey, D-5, said. “We will be exposing what used to be a safe haven for people to make drug exchanges.”

Also high on the list are two homes in the 800 block of Hovey Street. Broken windows at each house reveal interiors with falling ceiling tiles and debris strewn across the floors. Trash litters the side of the garage of a home with yellow paint peeling off its sides.

Ald. Ann Thompson-Kelly, whose 7th Ward contains the two properties on Hovey and seven others set to come down, said the city needs to do more to hold “slum landlords accountable for the fines and fees to maintain their property.”

She doesn’t want taxpayers forced to foot the bill for lawn mowing and snow shoveling at razed properties.

“The city doesn’t need to own another piece of dirt. We own enough now,” Thompson-Kelly said. “We need to hold them accountable for what they did to the community.”